University of Ljubljana
Source: www.uni-lj.si
City of Ljubljana
Source: City Municipality of Ljubljana
About
CONI is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The specific challenge of the H2020-WIDESPREAD-06-2020: ERA Chairs call was to enhance institutional support to outstanding researchers that can have a decisive and positive impact on the culture and performance of research institutions. Issues such as the availability of research funding, institutional rigidities and access to resources can hamper their mobility to promising institutions, particularly in low research and innovation performing countries. ERA Chairs actions will address the specific challenge of creating the appropriate conditions for high quality researchers and research managers to move and engage with institutions willing to achieve excellence in the scientific domain of choice and modify their research and innovation landscape.
Summary
Neuroinformatics is now an essential approach in brain research, to organise, analyse, integrate and interpret an increasing volume of diverse, multi-dimensional, fine-grain neuroscience data. University of Ljubljana's (UL's) challenges in this field are suboptimal research management and open innovation, slow pace of structural changes, limited research excellence, and lack of innovative training at the undergraduate, graduate and postdoc levels.
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ERA-Chair project will enable UL, located in a low research and innovation performing country, to create appropriate conditions and opportunities for a high-quality researcher and research manager (ERA-Chair holder, ECH) to address these challenges and foster sustainable neuroinformatics excellence as well as training in research management and administration.
The ECH will lead UL's Chair of Neuroinformatics (CONI) and will have the authority and autonomy to apply for funding, manage and develop CONI, and develop independent lines of research. The ECH will be supported by 4 research fellows, a Data & OI Manager, and a Public Relations Manager.
CONI will have access to existing multimodal and multidimensional clinical data from Alzheimer’s disease patients, including national and international data, for research into computer generated multi-domain markers and advanced clinical information and communications technology tools. ECH & CONI's staff will have full access to UL's research infrastructure and capital equipment.
UL's senior research staff will assist ECH & CONI's staff to participate in UL’s under graduate, graduate and postdoc programs, to integrate CONI into UL's national and international NI research network and to implement structural changes at the UL. Collaboration will be established with healthcare data SMEs and a stakeholder network. In 5 years, the ECH will apply or co-apply for 20 national or international grants; publish 20 high-impact research papers, and mentor or co-mentor, 15 MSc and 15 PhD students.
Neuroinformatics Consortium members
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These objectives will be achieved through a partnership between 4 faculties at University of Ljubljana:
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Faculty of Medicine (Pharmacogenetics Laboratory);
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Faculty of Mathematics and Physics (Medical Physics Research Group);
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Faculty of Computer and Information Science (Laboratory for Data Technologies);
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Faculty of Arts (Mind & Brain Lab)
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and Department of Neurology at University Medical Centre Ljubljana.